Every Sunday morning churches gather across EFC-MAYM for their weekly worship service. These events are the time during the week when the local church is “gathered” for community building, corporate worship, biblical teaching and prayer by following the example of the early church (Acts 2:42-47). Acts 2:46 tells us the first church met together in the temple courts DAILY! Their experience of gathering together wasn’t limited to once per week but happened on a daily basis. They were part of a tight knit community.
But that wasn’t all they did. The New Testament records countless stories of many ways they impacted their community and their world through service and outreach. Why did this happen? Because they encountered Jesus, so they were inspired and encouraged to engage the world around them.
This past month at Ministry Conference, our theme was Encountering Jesus…Engaging the World. Through the weekend we worshipped together, we shared together, we prayer together and we ate together. We listened to God’s Word being proclaimed, and we heard stories of “bright spots” across Mid-America and around the world where people are saying “yes” to Jesus and engaging the world around them.
If you were in attendance, we (the EFC-MAYM Leadership Team) hope you encountered Jesus while at Ministry Conference and have committed yourself to engaging your world upon returning home.
As we prepared for Ministry Conference this year our hope was to continue the celebration that occurred last year as we completed our 150th anniversary celebration, and focus more on community building and worshipping Jesus, and less on gathering to simply to conduct business. Even in our “Worship and Business Meeting” on Saturday afternoon we worshipped and celebrated what God has been doing.
It is our hope in the years ahead that our annual gathering will be a worship event that families look forward to attending for months in advance. We long for our annual gathering to be more and more about seeking Jesus together, so that we will each be better equipped and inspired to go back to our homes and engage the world around us.
If we follow the example of Jesus, worship will always lead to witness. Encountering Jesus always leads to engaging the world in some way. Jesus is always on mission (John 5:17) and always has a mission for us to fulfill (Matthew 28:19-20).
During the upcoming year, we will be continuing to seek out “bright spots” from across our region. As Jesus leads you or your church into some new avenue of ministry, and you say “yes” to Him, we would love to hear about it, so we can pray with you and celebrate what God does through you.
Yours and His,
Thayne A. Thompson, DMin
EFC-MAYM Lead Superintendent
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